Gail Alexan­der

For­mer UNC MPs Collin Par­tap and Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters don’t stand a chance if they go up for the PNM in UNC held seats.

That’s the view of UNC deputy leader David Lee. He was com­ment­ing on a Sun­day Guardian re­port that Par­tap is now of­fi­cial­ly with the PNM and is work­ing with rul­ing par­ty’s Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment cam­paign in the San­gre Grande area. PNM and UNC tied for that area in 2016.

There has al­so been spec­u­la­tion that Par­tap will be the PNM’s gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­date for the Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la seat he held with the UNC. How­ev­er, he has not con­firmed or de­nied those re­ports, on­ly say­ing that he will see “what hap­pens.”

Par­tap was fired from the Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment by Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in 2012 af­ter he re­fused po­lice at­tempts to take a breathal­yser test and was lat­er found guilty of dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence.

Pe­ters who was blanked as UNC’s Ma­yaro can­di­date in 2015, was ap­point­ed in 2018 by the Kei­th Row­ley ad­min­is­tra­tion to head the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion (NCC). PNM Ma­yaro con­stituen­cy of­fi­cials said his name is a fron­trun­ner for gen­er­al elec­tion can­di­da­cy and he has said he is open to ap­proach­es on any­thing to help T&T.

Lee said, “We knew Mr Par­tap was work­ing with the PNM all along and is be­ing used by the Gov­ern­ment to as­sist in woo­ing UNC peo­ple. It tells you a lot about the char­ac­ter of peo­ple when you see these things but it’s a free coun­try. We have our plans in San­gre Grande which we’ve been work­ing since 2016 and feel strong­ly we’ll con­trol the Cor­po­ra­tion in up­com­ing Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment elec­tions.

“The love of Cu­mu­to/Man­zanil­la con­stituents for the UNC’s leader and what Par­tap has done with the PNM now will make it very dif­fi­cult for him if he goes up there in gen­er­al polls, even if he’s a for­mer UNC MP. Con­stituents will nev­er for­get how the PNM has made them suf­fer in these last four years.

“Our MP has to ap­peal for help, so hop­ping across to the PNM won’t help his cred­i­bil­i­ty.”

Lee added, “In the cir­cum­stances where the UNC chose not to se­lect Mr Pe­ters for Ma­yaro in 2015 and with the love Ma­yaro peo­ple have for UNC’s Rush­ton Paray, it will be dif­fi­cult for Gyp­sy in Ma­yaro if he’s pushed by PNM.”